October 15, 2022
Author(s): Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz,
Shabbat Chol Ha’moed Sukkot
October 15, 2022 — 20 Tishrei 5783
A Strategy for the Anxious
Temple Emanuel, Newton, MA
I recently attended a wedding where the bride and groom shared beautiful vows under the chuppah. Both of their words were poignant, but the bride’s words landed especially powerfully for me.
The bride offered that in general she is nervous. She is anxious. She is a worrier. She is nervous about money. Nervous about her career. Nervous about where they are going to live, what they are going to do. Nervous about health. But, she said, the one thing she has never been nervous about is marrying her beloved. She always knew that marrying him was just right, a rare oasis in an otherwise anxious world.
Her words really resonated for me. I too am a worrier: about our children, about our family, about Temple Emanuel coming out of Covid. I have no end of things to be anxious about. So I was drawn both to her confession of anxiety, which I share, but also how in the midst of that anxiety, her marriage, her husband provide an oasis for her. That made me wonder: if we are prone to anxiety, where can we find relief? I want to offer two lenses that have been helpful to me, and an insight that comes from Sukkot.
The first lens is something that my late father used to say. He used to say: 95% of the things that we worry about do not come to pass.
If that insight is even half right, then that means that we end up worrying about a lot of things that we need not have worried about.
Does that ever happen to you? Do you ever lose sleep over something that in retrospect you need not have lots sleep over? Do you ever worry yourself sick over something that you need not have worried yourself sick over because it did not come to pass? I will never forget the time I officiated at the wedding of a couple that was in their early 30s. The groom observed that he had spent much of his 20s deeply worried that he would never find a partner. He did not enjoy his 20s. He worried through his 20s. Now, in his early 30s, he has found the love of his life. He is so happy. He observed: I only wish I could have my 20s back to live over again, this time without the worry.
Of course we don’t get that do over. The years that we worry, for nothing, we cannot get back to live over again, this time without the worry. But if we know that some large measure of what we worry about will not come to pass, can we find some relief and increased peace of mind now?
The second lens is something that the mother of a dear friend used to say. She survived the Shoah. She survived Auschwitz. Whenever her loved ones would express anxiety, she would always say: What is the worst thing that could possibly happen? Could you survive that? If you could, there is a certain comfort knowing that you will be okay. If the worst thing you worry about comes to pass, you will respond creatively to a different world, and that will allow you to emerge undefeated and strong.
The Times ran this remarkable story about a man named Myron Rolle who had been a football star at a major college program, Florida University. He was a cornerback who dreamed of playing in the NFL. He was also a serious student. He won a Rhode’s Scholarship. After he came back from his Rhodes, he played pro football for three years. He was on the roster of the Tennessee Titans. But he was relegated to the practice squad, he did not get the chance to play in actual games. He was eventually released and was unable to sign with another team. In his mid-20s, his dream of playing pro football had died.
At first he was depressed. But his mother reminded him that he had always had a plan B. His plan B was to go to medical school, and after medical school do an internship and residency that would train him to become a neurosurgeon. He had to live a different dream, which is what he proceeded to do. He attended medical school. He is currently a 6th year resident at MGH in neurosurgery. He is married, the father of four, and a mentor to teens in the Boston area. Myron Rolle’s trajectory—college football star, Rhodes Scholar, NFL practice squad player, medical student, neurosurgery resident—is particularly star-studded, but the basic pattern is universal. Many of us have our own version of it. If the thing that we worry most about should come to pass, could we find another way to thrive, a plan B where we would find a different kind of meaning, purpose and joy.
Point one: Most of the things we worry about do not come to pass.
Point two: If the things we worry about do come to pass, we can adjust creatively and find another way to thrive.
Which leads to a fundamental insight about anxiety and how to ameliorate it that comes from Sukkot. Sukkot is yom simchateinu, the festival of our joy. We are commanded to be joyful on Sukkot. And yet, when you look at the liturgy of Sukkot, there are some curious choices for a holiday that is about joy.
Consider the Haftarah today from Ezekiel 38, which imagines a cataclysmic war of Gog and Magog where there is death, destruction and devastation on such an epic scale that it will take seven months to bury all the dead soldiers in a place with the enchanting title: the Valley of Gog’s Multitudes.
We read this bloody and gory Haftarah on the day when we are commanded to be happy. Why? What is the tradition getting at? The problem is so obvious, there must be an insight buried in all this. Here is the insight, as I see it:
What is happy? There is no such thing as happy, happy. No such thing as happiness that is grafted upon a perfect world. There is only happiness grafted upon a real world that contains real world problems. That is why our Haftarah today deals with the scourge of war and violence because war and violence are sadly often with us. Our project is: how do we take the world as it is and still build sukkat shelmochech, a sukkah of peace?
Perfect is not on the menu. The things that we worry about will always be with us. Our work is not to eliminate all anxiety, but to figure out how to find peace of mind in the presence of anxiety. How to find the sukkah of peace in the presence of the war of Gog and Magog. That is why the bride’s vow to her beloved—I am anxious about everything else, but I am not anxious about you—is so beautiful. I have anxiety, but I also have peace of mind with you.
Shira and I have a dear friend who said something on point. He has a lot of joy in his life. He lives in Israel. He loves living in Israel. He loves the work he does in Israel. Every day he wakes up loving what he does, and where he does it. He has two adult children who are both happily married and themselves parents of young children. He loves seeing his happy adult children and their spouses. He loves being a Saba to his adorable grandchildren. And he also has loved ones who have chronic medical challenges that do not have a solution. Reflecting on his life, he said there is a lot of light in his life. And there is real darkness too. Both are real. Both are true. But he does not let the darkness cloud the light. He does not live in the color gray. He feels the darkness, and therefore he feels the joy of the light even more.
May this festival of joy inspire us to find our joy the only place we can find it: in the real world, where what is hard makes what is joyful even more joyful. Shabbat shalom.